Saturday, February 28, 2015

Thun is a city and municipality in the administrative
district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland with about 43,783
inhabitants, as of 31 December 2013. It is located where the River Aare flows
out of Lake Thun, 30 km south of Bern.

SwitzerlandSwiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its
abbreviation CH), is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of 26 cantons,
with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities, the so-called Bundesstadt
("federal city").The country is situated in Western and Central
Europen, where it is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany
to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked
country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura,
spanning an area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi). While
the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of
approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the
largest cities are to be found; among them are the two global and economic
centres of Zürich and Geneva.

The establishment of the Swiss union is traditionally dated to 1 August
1291, which is celebrated annually as Swiss National Day. The country has a
long history of armed neutrality—it has not been in a state of war
internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002.
Nevertheless it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in
peace-building processes around the world.In addition to being the birthplace
of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to numerous international organizations,
including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding
member of the European Free Trade Association and is part of the Schengen Area
– although it is notably not a member of the European Union, nor the European
Economic Area (and thus does not use the Euro currency).

Straddling the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland
comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, Italian
and Romansh. Therefore the Swiss, although predominantly German-speaking, do
not form a nation in the sense of a common ethnicity or language; rather,
Switzerland's strong sense of identity and community is founded on a common
historical background, shared values such as federalism and direct democracy,and
Alpine symbolism.

Switzerland ranks high in several metrics of national performance, including
government transparency, civil liberties, economic competitiveness, and human
development. It has the highest nominal wealth per adult (financial and
non-financial assets) in the world according to Credit Suisse and the eighth-highest
per capita gross domestic product on the IMF list.Swiss citizens have the second-highest
life expectancy in the world. Zürich and Geneva each have been ranked among the
top cities with the highest quality of life in the world (the former coming
second globally according to Mercer).